If you read the last blog post, you would have been introduced to Derick. Derick was the party boy who was always late to work, always asked to leave early, and did nothing but drink and use girls outside of work. Another thing he does but has not been spoken about is the fact he claims to be an actor. I only say claims because of a situation that happened at work one day. Now, the story will not make any sense if you do not know a small amount about lifeguard training.

Lifeguards have to go through continuous training throughout the summer. There are three types of drowning: active, passive, and suspected spinal. Active means they are still conscious but are drowning, passive means they are unconscious, and suspected spinal is pretty self-explanatory.  With a passive scenario, we have a lifeguard get in the water face down as the GID (guest in distress). The GID in the water will go by a lifeguard on a stand, and that person has to jump in and get them and begin to go through the required steps. One of the main steps is getting them out of the water to evaluate the situation and decide if CPR is needed.

Derrick got the GID out of the water with help from others and was supposed to go through the scenario as if it was real. We stopped the scenario early because it went so bad because only one lifeguard was doing what they were supposed to do. We individually talked to the six lifeguards and I got to speak with Derrick. I asked him why he was looking away and laughing the whole time. His response, “I can’t take this seriously because I know she isn’t dead.”  I stood there just looking at him like he was a complete idiot for a moment and then I went off on my rant. I asked him, “How do you call yourself an actor if you can’t even take this seriously? All this scenario is, is acting. When you act the situation at hand isn’t even real. You are acting to make it seem real.” He was not able to respond to the question so I let him go. Now when I see him I can only think about a duck because all they do is quack and seem to know what is going on but don’t. That is the best way to describe Derrick. Derrick the duck who does not know what is happening, but thinks he is as cool as a duck in shades.